THE PANDORA’S BOX OF INTERPRETATION
It seems simple enough – offer an interpretive program that shares the environmental degradations that humans have caused. Pro-active behavior is the only logical product from such enlightenment. Certainly hundreds of programs across the country attempt this task in one form or another. However, some of the research conducted by the author has found an opposite effect. In particular, with children, we have found that as they learned more about environmental issues the more some became “fatigued” by the complexity and shades of gray environmental issues can portray. In essence, these programs opened up a “Pandora’s Box” of questions and dissidence not suited for a brief interpretive experience.
In fact, results from several of our school programs showed that the students seemed to think that they were not capable of making a significant difference following park site visits. Prior to interpretive programs, students who were surveyed felt they were environmentally aware and that they wanted to make positive changes for the environment. However, a number of the same students responding to the same questions AFTER the interpretive experience answered in a much less empathetic way. Questions such as, “Do you plan on taking environmental action?” were answered with “Not really” or “No.…I don’t think I’d do a big thing to help support it [the environmental issue discussed in the program].” A lack of locus of control seemed more pervasive during the post questioning. As one student remarked, “Not really, because I am just twelve and I can’t do anything.”
This message is similar to the caution I gave in the preceding blog (see Successful Strategies for Environmental Interpretation) but, none the less, it is one that is well worth repeating. Some interpreters, and many environmental educators, will “crack open” the box simply to let the information out that WE would think is appropriate for our audience. But limiting such information to one side of usually multi-faceted issues can be harmful. In this author’s opinion this technique led to a national reputation…and to some degree accurate…that many environmental interpretive / education programs were more environmental activist oriented rather than educational.
Due to their brevity, interpretive experiences cannot allow proper time or rumination for students (or adults) to understand and assimilate complex environmental issues. So what is the solution? Keep the box closed unless you’re prepared to have it fully opened! In which case, be prepared to offer a holistic view of the issues – which would necessitate more time than an interpretive experience can offer!
Right on, Doug. I remember a trip with the kids to an aquarium last spring, just before Earth Day. There was an exibit with satellite photos of the destruction to the ocean’s floors caused by fishing trawlers, another on how frogs are disappearing, a third on pollution… By the end, I was calling it the Despairium. If I as an adult with a fairly high degree of environmental knowledge had the feeling that it was too late to do anything meaningful about these problems, how must they make children feel? And yet pretending everything is okay isn’t the answer either. It’s a tricky box to have in the room.
I am now teaching a class to college students on environmental interpretation. Opening pandora’s box is one thing my students want to do. I am pleased to say that when the facilitated their environmental interpretation programs they refrained from doing such. Instead they concentrated on teaching students about the types of flora and fauna that could be found in their neighborhoods, local parks, and backyards. At the same time they questioned, when, if ever it is appropriate to open the box. My best response was only when a long-term relationship and experience is forged and students can be taken through the appropriate levels of Hungerford and Volk’s model of environmental education. Thus, in a single intrepetive program- they should keep it shut. This is a serious challenge for new- passionate educators / interpreters (as it has been for myself over the years). When else should / could the box be cracked and the beast let out?
Martin Luther King said, “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Conservation groups, particularly land conservancies and their ilk, are increasingly shy about being advocates out of a misplaced fear of jeopardizing their tax status. Agencies are precluded from advocacy by law, educators by boards, and now interpreters by what? Fear?
The opposite of despair is hope. Why not positive advocacy? For example, the forests of central Pennsylvania were obliterated during the cut-and-run era of the late 1800s. Conservation leaders such as Rothrock, Dock, McFarland, and Pinchot dedicated their lives to restoring “Penn’s Woods,” a task they well knew would not be accomplished in their lifetimes. Nevertheless they continued, and today we enjoy the fruits of their labors in the restored forests of the PA Wilds. And, yes, they were advocates as well as story-tellers.
As Zaradic, Pergams, and Kareiva recently concluded, “ultimately, the fate of biodiversity and intact ecosystems may depend less on rates of habitat loss or invasive species, than on public perception of whether conservation should be supported at all.”